I must take issue with the depiction of L. Ron Hubbard in the aforementioned article regarding Jack Parsons, Alastair Crowley, et al. It was taken from a book, “Jack Parsons and the Fall of Babalon”, which data has long ago been debunked.[1] The author missed a few details that your readers might find of interest.

In October, 1969, the now defunct London Times printed an article covering the same events. After learning of the true facts, however, the Times reprinted a retracting article on Sunday, 28 December, 1969 as follows:

“SCIENTOLOGY: NEW LIGHT ON CROWLEY”
“On 5 October, 1969, Spectrum [a page of the Times] published an article ‘The Odd Beginning of L. Ron Hubbard’s Career.’ The Church of Scientology has sent us the following information.

“Hubbard broke up black magic in America: Dr. Jack Parsons of Pasadena, California, was America’s Number One solid fuel rocket expert. He was involved with the infamous English black magician Alastair Crowley who called himself ‘The Beast 666.’ Crowley ran an organization called the Order of Templars Orientalis over the world which had savage and bestial rites. Dr. Parsons was head of the American branch located at 100 N. Orange Grove Avenue, Pasadena, California. This was a huge house which had paying guests who were the USA nuclear physicists working at CAl Tech. Certain agencies objected to nuclear physicists being housed under the same roof.

“L. Ron Hubbard was still an officer of the U.S. Navy because he was well known as a writer and a philosopher and had friends amongst the physicists, he was sent in to handle the situation. He went to live at the house and investigated the black magic rites and the general situation and found them very bad.

“Parsons wrote to Crowley in England about Hubbard. Crowley ‘The Beast 666’ evidently detected an enemy and warned Parsons. This is all proven by the correspondence unearthed by the Sunday Times. Hubbard’s mission was successful far beyond anyone’s expectations. The house was torn down. Hubbard rescued a girl they were using. The black magic group was dispersed and destroyed and has never recovered. The physicists included many of the 64 top U.S. scientists who were later declared insecure and dismissed from government service with so much publicity.”

I trust that clears up this matter completely.

Sincerely yours,
Glenn Barton
Community Relations Director

After publishing an article about Jack Parsons and L. Ron Hubbard, Scientology sent letters like this for months. We finally printed an excerpt. The note from “Community Relations Director” Glenn Barton points out that the London Times (actually it was the London Sunday Times) printed a “retracting article.” This was simply a dissenting letter from Scientology with their version of events, which doesn’t really qualify as a “retraction.”

Bishop, G., Ed. (2000). Wake Up Down There The Excluded Middle Collection The best from the acclaimed underground magazine of UFOs, the paranormal spirit, psychedelia and conspiracy.

↑Jack Parsons and the Fall of Babalon is out of print. The Kindle version is available on Amazon